Cash for clunkers sounds like a great idea. It seems so simplistic: I get money for turning in my old car. However, there is much more to this than meets the eye.
Cash for clunkers is another brilliant liberal idea, and by brilliant, I mean brain dead.
Liberals say that if you trade in your old used car, you will receive $4.5K for a new one. It can’t be the basic if it comes out of D.C., so why isn’t the media challenging this piece of legislation? We all know the answer to that one…ask ABC.
There are numerous downsides to this bill:
- If dealers anticipate a rebate for a trade in, they will only increase their base price for the car to make up for it.
-People drive old cars because they cannot afford new ones so how will $4.5K actually help? The down payments that many banks are asking for are much higher due to risk and tighter lending practices. The monthly payments are also tough to meet if you are of low income status. I just bought a new Mini Cooper and have a great credit/beacon score… but because I couldn’t put down $15K on the spot, I couldn’t get a bank loan. I had to settle for the higher rate at the BMW dealership.
-This will also increase the cost of used cars. If more people are trying to purchase new cars, then used car dealerships will suffer and will be forced to raise their prices to make a profit, rather than make a profit from volume of sales. In essence, this will hurt the lower middle class and the poor – the very people he professes to help.
-Charities will be negatively affected by this law. There are over 350K charities that are used car donors. These charities will see a direct decrease in donations if people believe they are getting a kick-back. These charities will have to cut staff and operations, causing more unemployment and fewer used cars for those who really need them.
-The proposed cost of this law would be $4B. This is another “government pays” bill. Therefore, one would think that maybe this is another bill that is circular… The Government will tax you to help pay for your car… why not just pay for it yourself then? All estimates that come out of the government are conservative at best; therefore, you can and should always take on another 50% to the original value.
-Other industries may suffer if there are consumer shifts. Priorities of consumers will shift based on whether they think they are getting a better deal. If cars go up something else will inevitably go down.
-The fact that the Democrats are global warming alarmists happens to be another excuse they will use. They will exclaim that used cars cause more pollution… I don’t believe that in the slightest, so I won’t even touch on it. There is still plenty we do not know about hybrids and whether or not they truly are as effective as people would like to believe. I also do not believe in the hoax or the hype – ’nuff said. Personally, my Mini Cooper’s gas mileage goes up as it gets older…just sayin’
-This is another pay-to-play scheme to pay off the $400M campaign donations given to Democrats and Obama by the UAW. If old cars are scrapped, new cars will have to be manufactured and purchased and more money into the pockets of the UAW.
This type of legislation has been tried before, in another country no less:
Germany has used a similar program for a few months, and of course it has actually cost at least three times more than government “estimates.” More than this, studies of the German experience have shown it has largely led to a mere shift of spending priorities. Consumer electronics sales fell in ratio to automobile spending meaning there has been no net gain for Germany’s economy.
It is so interesting and disturbing how Obama and the Democrats have gone after charities and small business. Charities have been attacked on both the stimulus front, the taxable deductions front, and now this idea for clunkers. A study showed that conservatives give more to charity than any other ideological group, because they do so through their churches. These churches are involved in many charities across the nation and it’s quite disheartening to see the Liberals be so antipathetic towards religious movements.
Obama and the Democrats are hell-bent on making people so dependent on the government, and only the government, that they will soon need to get their diapers changed by them too. This is insanity!
This new environmentally friendly vehicle will be sure to entice the most progressive of voters. GM is proud to introduce the latest and greatest automobile; the ObamaMobile.
The ObamaMobile runs on oxygen, namely hot air and broken promises. There is only a left side blinker, careful that the car does not head in the right direction. If you happen to find yourself pulled over or required to speak with a travel mate, don’t worry, the ObamaMobile contains two new amenities; Teleprompters, and they will do the talking for you! This car is so great you will be visiting all 57 states in no time. The clear, plastic bubble overhead keeps all liberal voters unaware of reality and safe from Swine Flu. Enjoy and happy motoring… Government motoring that is!
Let me see if I have this right… The New GM CEO knows nothing about cars, the 31 year-old, who still hasn’t graduated law school, knows nothing about the auto industry, nor has he had any real life experience, but will be overseeing this, Obama knows nothing about America, and Biden just doesn’t know anything – GIRD YOUR LOINS!
Edward E. Whitacre Jr. built AT&T Inc. into the biggest U.S. provider of telephone service over a 43-year-career. By his own admission, he becomes chairman of General Motors Corp. knowing nothing about the auto industry.
The 6-foot-4-inch Texan nicknamed “Big Ed” said steering the nation’s largest automaker after bankruptcy is “a public service.” People who know him say he can meet GM’s need for the type of transformation he orchestrated at Dallas-based AT&T.
“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”
It is true that business principles remain the same, but it’s not always that cut and dry, especially in an ailing industry that has complex problems, requiring complex solutions. If Whitacre has experience negotiating and dealing with unions then that’s a huge plus, but if not, he has some learning to do, and not a lot of time. It’s one thing to reinvent a company like AT&T when you already know the issues and the core competencies of the company, as well as the inner workings of the industry. It’s an entirely different thing if you know nothing about the actual product, life cycle, or process…
Here is some common sense for a second, stay with me:
I worked as a financial analyst/specialist for government contracts at a defense contractor specifically making radars and electronic systems. I switched jobs and was doing the same financial analysis, but for biodefense products, of which I knew nothing. My job requires budgeting, forecasting, scheduling, and analysis. therefore, I must know the process, the program, what to expect, how to fix things, you name it! Because of my lack of experience with the actual product and the knowledge of the company’s competencies, I was not thrown into a leadership position right away. I was given a period of orientation to understand the job and the types of programs being managed. The basic principles of my job stayed the same, but the product and procedures were different – and it makes a huge difference.
Unfortunately, GM needs somebody that doesn’t have to have on-the-job training, but since the government is making decisions and the POTUS is currently practicing his own on-the-job training, this comes to me as no surprise. Heck! my father who has been a GM mechanic for over 30 years could probably be a better chair.
It comes as no surprise to anyone who has been following the auto industry news, that GM will be filing for bankruptcy this week and their first action was filing for bankruptcy protection this morning.
On Friday, GM’s stock was well below the $1 mark and continued to fall throughout the day.
The bankruptcy filing, made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, marks the climax of a lengthy debate over the auto maker’s future after it sought a bailout from the U.S. government in December to stay alive. In the end, GM couldn’t complete its restructuring out of court and filed for bankruptcy-court protection to get billions more in aid from U.S. taxpayers.
The question now facing 56,000 auto workers, 3,600 GM dealers and the Obama administration: Will it work?
The U.S. government has agreed to provide GM with another $30 billion in aid, in addition to the $20 billion the auto maker has already borrowed, to see it through its restructuring and exit from bankruptcy protection. In return, the government will get a controlling stake in the company. The Canadian and Ontario governments are putting in $9.5 billion for a 12.5% stake.
I thought that Obama didn’t want to be in the car business? It seems like the government is becoming fascist, as Thomas Sowell recently noted:
We’re not a socialist country, because the socialists believe in government ownership in the means of production, but the fascists believe that the government should have private ownership and the politicians should tell people how to run the businesses. So that’s the route we seem to be going.
I’m sorry, but this really is getting insane and it only proves the most recent article coming out of the Russian Pravda paper, no less, entitled, “American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper.”
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
The government has never been able to run any type of business well, mainly due to the fact that the majority of politicians have never worked in the business world, they are either lawyers or just came straight out of college with a BS in political science – and BS is extremely apropos. The government tried running Amtrak and how well did that go? The government tried running the Mustang Ranch, and couldn’t manage to make a profit from sex of all things!
Obama wants control of the auto industry because of his voting bloc, the unions (namely the UAW), who contributed over $400M to his campaign and so he can pass his green agenda via vehicles. We can all drive around some solar powered tin cans that need to be recharged every 40 miles and get nowhere!
Peter Schiff also had an interesting take on where our economy is headed and some final words regarding GM that he posted on youtube, Friday:
Gasp! Could it be that our political system and our very own government is playing favorites depending on political ideology? Unfortunately, it may actually appear that way…
The question of preferential treatment comes from a blog post of gateway pundit who did a little fact checking on the dealerships that were being closed – some of which had no trouble meeting their objectives and making profits during a recession. There has been a ton of outrage and confusion regarding the reasoning behind these closings. As people began to dig and ask the question, the pink elephant in the room, there seemed to be some interesting correlations – GOP donors and voting regions were targeted, while Democrat donors and blue states slid by.
Now here is the latest on the Chrysler closings– I was sent this earlier today:
I have obtained two pdf files from the bankruptcy court.
One is the list of dealers to close and the other is the list to stay open.
I am in the process right now of editing the data into comma delimited format for import to Excel and am about 2/3rd of the way through the closure listing.
I haven’t done any donation cross references yet and that will come.
This has to be done manually ,which is very time consuming due to formatting issues with the data.
But, so far in the shutdown list there is an extremely high correlation between dealers closing and congressional districts BHO lost.
Texas is getting killed and Blue States are sliding by. Florida is also taking major hits and nearly all are in Republican Congressional Districts.
Little West Virginia is getting hammered.
I will know much better when I start doing all the cross reference work after I finally get the data into Excel, but that is going to take time since the data has to be formatted up manually and there are over 2000 dealers involved between the two lists.
So far what I see smells big time.And, Reboot Congress is asking for some assistance:
I’ve created a list of the cut dealers that *simplifies* the process of gathering donation information from OpenSecrets. It’s a partial solution that needs lots of help from folks on the web. It’s a crowd sourced project.
